


pumpkin kisses

by astrogyaru



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Abusive Bro, Autumnal Shenanigans, Cooking, Fluff without Plot, M/M, Menstruation, Mental Health Issues, Minor Rose Lalonde/Kanaya Maryam, POV Dave, POV Second Person, Trans Dave Strider, Trolls on Earth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 01:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8426002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrogyaru/pseuds/astrogyaru
Summary: “I think,” she takes a sip of coffee, “we should do some seasonal ass shit, and go to the pumpkin patch outside town today.”
You raise your brows. “Seasonal ass shit?”
“Big sweaters, hot apple cider, gettin’ lost in corn, the works,” she says with a grin.





	

You’re lying in your bed, wide awake at around 5 in the morning, the only sounds being the early bird singing outside, and the soft, steady breathing of your boyfriend, interspersed with quiet, cricket-like chirping.

The chirping is coming from your boyfriend, of course.

Karkat is curled up next to you, face buried between a pillow and your shoulder. His horns poke out beneath messy black hair, and his warm-grey skin stands out next to the white bedsheets.

Trolls have been living analogous to humans on Earth for the better part of two decades now. You met Karkat through Kanaya, who had your twin sister and half-siblings as a host family when you got out of Texas and away from your bro.

(You try not to think of your bro too much.)

You roll over and bury your nose in Karkat’s hair, wrapping an arm around his sleeping form. He makes a small noise, like talking in his sleep. You tell him to shush and rub circles on his back.

When the heaviness of sleep fails to come around after twenty or so minutes, you decide to get up. If your body is refusing sleep, you could at least take advantage of being up before everyone else to make a nice breakfast. You crawl out of bed carefully, all small movements and tiny creaks of the mattress. Before you leave the room you plant a kiss on Karkat’s temple.

Three years ago, if you woke up early and felt like getting up, well, there just wasn’t anything you could do about that. There was no leaving your room without careful analysis of the building, not without ears finely tuned to the sounds of someone in the other room. It’s weird to walk the quiet halls of Rose’s house-- your house, you guess. Weird to step into the kitchen and flick on the light, to open the refrigerator and find food and to know that you’re welcome to make what you want.

You start with the coffee pot-- there’s a lot of caffeine addicts in this house-- then decide to make french toast. Because there really, truly, is nothing fucking stopping you from making french toast and coffee at 5 in the morning, so you do.

Not long after you start mixing up eggs and milk and placing bread into the mixture do you hear footsteps behind you. The coffee pot rumbles with the last drops of water and out of the corner of your eye you see Dirk, taking a mug from the cabinet and filling it with the hot liquid.

“Hey,” he says after taking a drink, voice a bit rough.

“Sleep at all?” you ask him.

He lets out a dry laugh. “Not a goddamn wink.” Another drink of coffee. “You?”

You shrug. “I slept alright, got a few hours in.”

“Karkat still asleep?” he asks, eyeing you over his mug while you turn on the gas stove top.

“Yeah? I mean, shit bro, I wasn’t gonna wake him up just because I had a hankering for egg bread at the ass crack of dawn.” You focus for a second on placing a slice of bread into a pan over the stove instead of the way you think Dirk is looking at you. “And he looked real comfortable too, I mean, I’m not one to disturb an alien crab in his makeshift pupal casing burrito. That’s just asking for trouble.”

“Good to know my brother’s treating his alien boyfriend well.” He takes another drink, and before you can respond he says, “I’m gonna go take a shower.”

You open your mouth and close it, an embarrassed rebuttal dying on your lips. “See you in a few hours then, I guess,” you mumble, and he waves you off as he leaves

Another set of footsteps find their way into the kitchen after about ten minutes spent mindlessly flipping slice after slice of bread.

“Smells good in here,” Roxy says sleepily, giving you a loose hug from behind before going to the fridge and pulling out a large container of coffee creamer.

Out of the corner of your eye you see her pour a cup of coffee into a pink mug, the one with the cat face and the little lid with ears on it. She spills a little bit onto the counter top before stirring in creamer with a noisy, clinking spoon.

“So,” she says, leaning back against the counter.

“So?” you say, placing another slice of toast onto the pile you’ve amassed on the large plate next to you.

“It’s… what, like, October twenty something now?”

“The twenty fifth, I think,” you say.

“I think,” she takes a sip of coffee, “we should do some seasonal ass shit, and go to the pumpkin patch outside town today.”

You raise your brows. “Seasonal ass shit?”

“Big sweaters, hot apple cider, gettin’ lost in corn, the works,” she says with a grin.

“Alright, I’m down I guess,” you say. You’ve run out of bread to fry at this point, so you guess you should start actually eating breakfast instead of making it.

You reach into the same cabinet Roxy got her mug from and pull out two mugs, one for you and one for Karkat. After filling them up with coffee, you carefully carry them up to your room.

Karkat is still curled up in bed when you get there. There’s a moment of silence as you stand in the doorway, but it’s interrupted by a small chitinous chirp.

You sit next to your boyfriend-- boyfriend… Boyfriend. To this day the word still fills your tummy up with butterflies, even though you’ve been dating for about seven months now. The bed creaks pathetically under you and the sheets are old and mismatched, but there’s an unmistakable sense of comfortable, lived-in, _home_ -ness that you wouldn’t trade for anything.

“Hey,”

You drink your coffee, flavored with season appropriate pumpkin spice coffee creamer, and reach out to brush a few stray pieces of hair out of Karkat’s face. He looks at you and smiles, slowly, still through the fog of sleep.

You bring him downstairs and eat two slices of french toast apiece, drenched in syrup and butter and cinnamon, while Roxy tells everyone else her plans for the day.

Karkat asks you what the fuck a pumpkin patch is and you spend fifteen minutes talking his ear off while getting dressed, about how you’ve never got to do anything like that when you were little and how you’ve always kind of wanted to get in on that corny as hell festive shit, and now you actually have the chance. When you pop your head out from underneath your black tee shirt, the one you always like to wear over your binder to hide its shape, he surprises you with a quick kiss on the cheek.

“I still don’t know what the fuck we’re doing today, but you seem really excited,” he pauses, pulling the sleeves of a knitted grey turtleneck onto his arms. “It’s kind of fucking adorable.”

“You’re fucking adorable,” you say back, turning to your closet to hide the blush creeping onto your face.

You put on a printed button up shirt, the one with the tiny crows all over it that Rose bought you, and pull a loose burgundy sweater over that, because the more layers the better. You let Karkat borrow your faded denim jacket, mostly because you don’t want him to be too cold, but partly because you love sharing your clothes with him, in an incredibly gay and sappy sort of way.

The drive is a little bit longer than you were expecting, but that’s okay, because you’re sitting in the very back of the car with Karkat, in the third row of your mom’s SUV that Dirk nabbed the keys to. There’s a separate dial for the heaters back here and you crank it high and snuggle close to your boyfriend, who leans into you in turn. It’s just barely sixty degrees outside and you’re never going to get used to the cold.

In the row in front of you is your twin sister, Rose, and her girlfriend, Kanaya, whose larger orange horns scrape against the ceiling of the car and block your view ahead. You don’t mind, though, gaze instead fixed out the window on your right, eyes watching vermilion trees speed by as Dirk drives down the highway. Roxy messes with the radio in the passenger seat, wearing a pink sweater with a cat’s face on the front and a long striped scarf wrapped several times around her neck.

You eventually end up at what looks like a small farm a little ways off of the highway. There’s rolling hills and trees far in the distance and a large field dotted with bright orange pumpkins, stretching out for more than a hundred yards. You step out of the car into the parking lot, gravel crunching under your feet and the sun glinting off of your shades.

Near the parking lot is an old red barn with a tin roof and different kinds of vendors all around. You carefully slip your hand into Karkat’s while you all walk towards the entrance, a tacky little gate flanked by wooden cutouts of pigs and jack-o-lanterns. Roxy rushes up, big smile on her face as she pulls out her phone.

“Everyone get in front of that ugly pig,” she says.

“No,” Dirk replies plainly, taking her phone from her. “I’m not standing in front of that thing.”

Roxy gives him a pout. “Then you take the picture, grumpy ass.”

She joins the rest of you by the gate while Dirk mumbles something about that being what he intended to do anyway. Karkat looks at you a little confused, but goes along with posing with the rest of you for the photo.

“Why are we doing this, again?” he asks.

“Smile!” Roxy stands between the two of you, pulling you close with her arms on either of your shoulders.

You finally walk into the damn place, and after a listless discussion on what to do first, you all head to the petting zoo, mostly because it’s right by the entrance.

“This is weird,” Karkat says as you approach a wire fence enclosing several goats.

“You just… have all these on display, and for petting?” Kanaya asks. “Why are there so many cluckbeasts loose?”

You look down and a chicken runs past your feet, followed by a very brave and wobbly toddler. When you look up again, your breath catches in your throat at the sight of Karkat tentatively investigating a black pygmy goat, crouching down to its level with the most intense look of awe on his face.

Smiling, you crouch down next to him and offer the goat a stray piece of hay. Karkat gasps when it takes it in between its teeth, chewing oddly and bleating to signal it wants more.

He looks at you, and you give a small nod. He finds another piece of hay and the goat takes it from him, a bit aggressively, and he lets out a surprised laugh. 

“Look at this guy, he’s just like me.”

Upon closer inspection, you see the goat is growing small, slightly misshapen horns from its head. It only just occurs to you that Karkat has probably never seen another horned species on this alien planet before.

“Say cheese!” Roxy says behind you, and when you turn you see her holding up her phone and snapping a picture. She takes more pictures, of Dirk and a horse, of Kanaya and Rose bonding with an alpaca, and another of you and Karkat with some pigs.

The next place the six of you end up is right outside of the corn maze, just as another group of people are getting ready to head in. You’re all handed printouts, onto which you’re supposed to do crayon rubbings at different stops in the maze to reveal the full map. It all sounds a bit complicated, but the man explaining things mentions a time that has yet to be beat, and you feel some of the people in your group fluttering up at that.

“I’m beating that record,” Dirk says as soon as the man is done talking. “Who’s gonna be on my team?”

“I’m beating you beating that record,” Roxy offers, and just like that, a challenge is born.

You and Karkat end up on Roxy’s team after Rose takes Dirk up on his offer, Kanaya following suit. Roxy picks out a blue crayon from a tin up front and turns to the two of you to talk strategy.

“So, first things first. Rule number one of corn mazes: have fun and be yourself.”

Karkat rolls his eyes. “Yeah, that’ll definitely get us out of there faster than the others. What’s rule number two, believing in the power of friendship?”

“Second rule is ‘shut your face hole and listen to whatever Roxy says.’”

You laugh and he gives you a playful jab in the side with his elbow.

The clock strikes the hour and a man rings a cowbell, signalling that it’s time for the next group. It’s all really sort of silly, or at least it feels silly, waiting around for this organized corn maze with other groups comprised mostly of suburban families, watching Roxy and Dirk trash talk each other before the start, the giant bow tie the dude up front is sporting and the goofy way he asks if your team has a crayon for the rubbings.

There’s a part of you that that feels like he should sit there with a blank, borderline disgusted expression, but there’s another, stronger part of you that doesn’t care very much about being cool anymore. That part of you slings an arm around your boyfriend’s neck, one of the few trolls in the area, and gives him a chaste kiss on the cheek, right in front of everyone. Small, barely-passing trans kid kissing alien boyfriend at corn maze. As if the two of you didn’t already stick out like sore thumbs.

It’s announced that you can finally enter, and Dirk and Roxy waste no time, both breaking out into a sprint down the first path.

“Should we just… let them do their thing?” Kanaya asks. Rose takes her by the arm and leads the way, at a reasonable pace.

“Yes, I think we’re on our own here. Dave and Karkat, you coming?”

You shrug and follow your sister, letting your arm slide off Karkat and taking his hand instead. He looks down at where your hands meet, then up at your face. Hand-holding, especially in public, was a little weird to trolls, but you do it anyway. Kind of a lot, to an almost obnoxious degree. Karkat told you once that the weight of your hand in his gave him a little bit less anxiety, and you said the same thing.

The paths have been carved out of the field by way of breaking the stalks of corn at the base, you think, because it sort of seems like they’re folded up under your feet as you walk. There’s the crunch, crunch, crunch all your shoes make as you walk, which is actually a really satisfying sound, and so far no sign of your other siblings, only the low babble of the other maze goers and the wind rustling through the field.

Karkat ends up taking the lead, walking ahead of the group and making sure the map is filled out right. You smile as he goes up to the stations set up throughout the maze, as he burns the image of what is starting to look like a pumpkin-- surprise surprise-- into the handout with a red wax crayon. The map doesn’t actually do anything to help you figure out where to go next, though, because you end up walking the same circle of corn for about ten minutes because none of you could figure out how to get out.

Eventually you all fill out your maps, and you watch the sky pass up above the tall stalks of corn as Rose and Karkat disagree on whether to turn left or right at this next fork. You’re making note of how fast the wind must be to be able to push that little cloud so quickly when a heavy, sinking feeling settles in your gut out of nowhere.

“Are you okay?” Karkat asks immediately. You must’ve made a face.

Rose and Kanaya stop to look at you, too, wearing concern on their faces. “Yeah, I’m fine,” you say. “Gettin’ kinda bored of all this corn, though, you know?”

It’s decided that you should all hurry up and get out of the maze, because everyone is, indeed, starting to get a little bit bored of all this corn. You get trapped in another confusing loop, though, right near the end. You can see on the other side of the stalks where the exit is, but none of you can figure out how exactly to get there. After a few minutes of walking the same path over and over, Karkat’s starting to look a little red in the face.

“Can I just say,” he says, stepping down onto an already smashed ear of corn. “That mazes are fucking bullshit.”

“Don’t have to tell me twice,” you tell him. You stop short when you see Rose standing still along the path, in front of a gap in the corn blocked off with festive orange caution tape.

“Oh, fuck this,” she says, crouching down under the tape and popping up on the other side. Kanaya follows after a minute of hesitation, laughing quietly and saying something about there not being any rules _against_ this sort of thing.

You turn to Karkat, shrugging. He crosses his arms and furrows his brows, pride getting in the way for only a second before he deflates.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here.” He lifts up the tape for you to go under as well. What a gentleman.

Dirk and Roxy are sitting in the grass outside the exit, looking absolutely exhausted.

“So who won?” Rose asks, reaching out a hand to pull up her sister.

“Tie,” Dirk says plainly, pushing himself up off the ground.

“A very close tie,” Roxy corrects. “But, yeah, we kinda just sprinted through that thing together, sorry for leaving you behind.” She does look genuinely sorry, so you try a reassuring smile in response.

“Hey, we ended up having fun, anyways,” you say. Halfway through your words a sharp pain eases into your lower abdomen, and one of your hands instinctively goes there.

“You sure you’re okay?” Karkat asks on the way back to the main area. The maze was set up in a way that the exit was actually pretty close to the entrance, but you still have to walk a bit to get back to the pumpkins.

“I’m fine, just have to go to the bathroom,” you tell him, then lower your voice. “You remember that bullshit thing that happens to me sometimes that I told you about, with the uterine lining and shit?”

His eyes widen a little bit. “Oh. Is that, uh, happening now?”

“I think so, or it will soon.” You let out a stiff sigh. “Fun times at the pumpkin patch today.”

He gives you a sympathetic look and slings his arm around your waist, and you lean into him as you walk. “I’m sorry Dave, let me know if you wanna go home or anything, and I’ll yell at the others for you. Tell them to forget about their fucking pumpkins.”

That gets a tiny smile out of you. “Thanks, Kat.”

You thank the fucking heavens that this place has an actual, single stall bathroom for you to use, instead of a dismal row of porta-potties or a gendered room full of nasty urinals that there’s always the chance you might get kicked out of. You take that back when it does turn out that you have your period, and you have to take five to try to chill the fuck out after seeing the blood.

For some reason you didn’t think to bring anything in here with you, or any coins to try to work the tampon dispenser (not that that thing looks like it’d work anyway). Right, time to bother your sister, then.

Rose is busy talking to a vendor selling lavender honey, but that doesn’t stop you from poking and prodding her despite her very determined to ignore you.

After poking her with a little more force than was needed, she turns to you very stiffly. 

“David.”

“Dear sister,” you start, which only causes her glare to deepen. “Would you happen to have, in that big ol bag there, hygiene products of the, uh, vaginal variety?”

“What for?” she says with a quirk of her brow.

You reel back a bit. “The fuck do you mean ‘what for?’ What do you think?”

“The last time you asked me for a tampon you turned around and shoved it up John’s nose,” she states plainly.

“He had a nosebleed,” you offer, and she rolls her eyes.

Nonetheless, she reaches into her bag and after digging around in there for a moment, she finally fishes out a tampon and pad both wrapped in brightly colored plastic. You take them from her and give her a quick peck on the cheek. She gives you a look as you head back to the bathroom.

Period shit squarely Dealt With, you meet back up with the others at one of the picnic tables outside the food vendors area, shielded from the autumn sun by old metal roofing. You feel sort of weird in your tummy area, but at least period stuff has never really triggered your dysphoria.

“Here you go!” Roxy says, handing you a small plastic cup. It sort of looks (and smells) like it’s full of apple juice, but it’s hot to your touch when you take it in your hands.

You sit down next to Karkat and take a drink. It tastes like apple and a spice you can’t quite place, like apple juice with a kick to it, and thicker, too. “What is this?” you ask.

Rose lifts up one of her eyebrows. “You’ve never had hot apple cider before?”

You take another drink. “No. Damn, though, this shits like apple juice got all dressed up for a fancy dinner, or maybe a cocktail party. This is apple juice puttin’ on a red dress and dark lipstick, showin’ up forty minutes late, making her grand entrance at the top of some fancy ass fuckin stairs, goddamn.”

“I take it you like it then?” she asks.

You set your cup down. “It’s alright.”

Karkat laughs next to you. “You’re such a fucking dork,” he says in a quiet voice, shyness giving away the affection hidden in his tone. “Can I try it?”

You hand him the cup and watch as he takes a drink, scrunching up his nose when he’s done and saying something about how human food is really fucking weird sometimes. You just laugh and drink the rest yourself, the warm, spicy liquid making you feel a little bit better. 

Roxy offers you a bottle of Midol from her bag, and Dirk asks you a few times if you want to go home, but you just make an awkwardly executed joke about how you’re fine and how tough you are. It gets a laugh out of him and he leaves you alone after, but not before rustling a hand in your messy white hair.

Rose and Kanaya seem to be taking their time at a vendor selling autumnal flowers, while Roxy and Dirk wander around the selection of produce. You go with Karkat to a plowed field lined with what looks like hundreds of pumpkins. Most of them are orange, but others are white or a dark green color. They all have rough, stumpy stems and you soon discover that not each one is created equal, because so far you’ve only seen lumpy, scratched up ones.

“These oversized seed pods kind of suck ass, don’t they?” Karkat says, pushing on one with his foot, only causing it to roll over pathetically.

“Dude, help me find a really good one,” you say. “Oh, and I think we’ll need a wheelbarrow or whatever.”

Karkat lifts up one of the wheelbarrows lined up against the barn, pushing it along the dirt with only a little bit of difficulty getting the balance right. You laugh as he steadies it and walk alongside him, eyes going over every pumpkin at your feet.

“So, what exactly do we do with these things again? Do you eat them?”

“Nah, not really, I think it’s the green ones you eat. But I’m not sure.” You look over a tall and skinny one, but then move on when you notice the stem is missing. “I know you can roast the seeds, though, Dirk told me they were really good.”

“So… what then? What’s the point?” He sets the wheelbarrow down for a second, dusting dirt off of his hands.

“You carve them, hollow them out and cut a design in the front, then stick a candle in there and bam. Jack-o-lantern.”

He squints at you, then reaches down and picks up the wheelbarrow again. “Okay, so they don’t serve any purpose at all, good to know.” He smiles a little bit. “Except to be the organic shame canvas to your unfortunate artistic endeavors?”

“Exactly.”

“So you’re putting Hella Jeff onto one of them?”

“You know me so well.”

The sun peeks out from behind the clouds, but a cool wind whips by and stings at your ears. You curl your hands under the sleeves of your sweater as you go down the rows of the pumpkin patch, keeping close to Karkat as you walk. Trolls naturally have a higher body temperature, which is all kinds of unfair, even if it does make for a good excuse for cuddling.

Eventually you find one that’s not too wide or tall, and without any big marks damage. Next to it is a squat, fat pumpkin that’s really cute, somehow, so you decide to get both.

It turns out that pumpkins are way heavier than you were anticipating.

“You want me to…?” Karkat asks as you try to pick up the bigger of the two, the pain in your gut sapping your strength.

“Help,” you say, and he comes to you and lifts it up out of your hands, the large gourd falling into his arms like it weighed nothing. You watch as he sets it in the wheelbarrow before picking up the other one, holding the one-wheeled device steady in your hands so it doesn’t tip over from the weight.

You step aside and let him take the handles from you, lifting up the cart and pushing it back the way you came.

“Dude, you’re like…” you mumble, shoving your hands into your jean pockets.

“What?” he says. There’s a little bit of dirt on his forehead, probably from pushing the hair out of his face after handling the pumpkins.

Fuck, there’s a blush creeping onto your face that’s probably really noticeable, even under the shades you’re wearing.

“You’re like, way strong, man. I’m fuckin’ swooning over here,” you tell him, and he laughs. “Seriously, you could probably bench press me, and I’d thank you for it.”

It’s his turn to blush as you walk back to the barn area of the farm, telling him how hot you think his upper body strength is in a way that’s both very playful teasing and low-key sincere admiration. You meet up with the others, and after picking out another pumpkin to carve, the six of you pay for your autumnal goods and head for the car. Roxy is carrying several small pumpkins in her purse, and Kanaya has a bouquet made up of purple and yellow flowers with a big sunflower in the middle, given to her by Rose. 

The sun starts to set on the drive home, a deep orange color staining the sky at the horizon and turning the clouds pink. Karkat sets his head on your shoulder and you put your head on his, making sure not to lay on his nubby horns.

Mom greets you when you get home, hauling two of the pumpkins under her arms and into the house. Dirk carries the third and you hear her ask him again and again if he was careful driving, how was it, and if everyone had fun.

You step into the house and take off your shoes with a sigh. It’s warm inside, so you take off your sweater, too, and sort of throw it in the pile of coats and shoes by the door. Karkat actually makes the effort to properly put his shoes and coat up, and you make fun of him for being so organized before popping into your room real quick to take off your binder and change into period-appropriate clothes, aka sweatpants and one of Karkat’s big comfy sweaters.

Mom makes you take the pumpkins out on the patio when you and Karkat decide to get carving. You lay out old newspaper to make for easy cleanup later and take one of the big knives from the kitchen, the two of you sitting down together outside, each with one of the pumpkins in front of you.

You pick up the knife and imagine stabbing yourself right through the wrist.

Wow, okay, brain. You squeeze your eyes shut and try to let the thought pass, taking a deep inconspicuous breath before carefully pressing the blade through the flesh of the pumpkin.

“Dave?”

“Mm hmm?”

“You okay? You look all spaced out right now.” Karkat comes over to your side and puts a gentle hand over yours. “What’s wrong?”

You blink a few times and look over at him, your brain supplying a colorful image of what you stabbing _him_ with the knife would look like, so you promptly put it down and bury your face in your hands.

“I don’t think I can handle this ‘stabbing vegetables’ thing right now,” you tell him.

“Intrusive thoughts?”

“Yeah.”

It’s been easier talking about your mental health business with Karkat ever since you learned that he actually experiences a lot of the same things you do. You felt a little less ashamed of yourself when he told you that he also gets the random, violent thoughts out of nowhere thing, and you both agreed that anxiety sucks several different kinds of ass.

“We’re just cutting holes in the bottom right now, right? Let me handle it,” he says, and he does, cutting wonky circles through the gourds.

The inside of a pumpkin is much more horrific than you were anticipating, if you’re being completely honest. Stringy flesh hangs down from the top, coated in what looks like hundreds of tear-drop shaped seeds. Curiously, you reach in and take a handful, pumpkin guts squishing through your fingers as you close your fist. It kind of reminds you of those little tubs of slime you have.

“Fuck, dude, this is so nasty,” you say, laughing. It’s cold on your fingers and you have to use your elbows to awkwardly push up the sleeves of your borrowed sweater.

Karkat reaches in, throwing a handful of the stuff onto the newspaper on the ground with a satisfying plop, yelling in surprise at just how cold and slimy it is, and you howl with laughter. You both gut the pumpkins, spending equal amounts of time yelling about how unpleasant it is and trying to keep from getting pumpkin seeds thrown at you by the other.

“What’s going on over here?” Kanaya says, stepping through the open patio door. “I hear a lot of screaming and giggling.” She looks down at the mess you’ve both made. “Oh.”

“Wanna help?” you ask, holding up your hands, both covered with a slimy orange coating.

“I’ll leave you boys to your gourd-killing party, thank you,” she says, stepping back inside. Karkat laughs and you fling a stringy bit of pumpkin at him, so he retaliates by rubbing his pumpkin-covered hands all over your face.

By the end of it you’ve both done a pretty shoddy job of hollowing the pumpkins out and you are absolutely filthy, but there are tears in your eyes from laughing so hard.

“Oh, fuck,” you say, coughing a little bit. “We should probably try to clean ourselves up.”

Karkat shakes a few seeds off of his hands. “Are your hands cold? Mine are freezing.”

“Is that a ploy to get me to hold your hand?” you say with a smirk, and he rolls his eyes. “But yeah, me too. Let’s go back inside.” The night air stings at your sticky hands and you sigh when you step back into the house, heat filling you up almost instantly.

You change into another one of Karkat’s sweaters, promising not to get this one so dirty, and he puts on one of your hoodies, the red one with the turkey on it that you got from a Texas thrift store. You help each other wash the worst of the slimy stuff off, picking seeds out of each other's hair and giving each other messy kisses when the laughter starts bubbling up again.

Afterwards you head into the kitchen after drawing a sharpie Hella Jeff onto your pumpkin for Dirk to cut out, since you all agree that the two of you shouldn’t be handling any pumpkins for the foreseeable future. Instead you ask Karkat if he’ll help you make hot chocolate for everyone, going through all of the cabinets and picking out stuff you think would be good to add.

Karkat leans on the counter in front of the pile of spices, syrups, hot chocolate mix, and cocoa powder you’ve amassed. “How many different flavors do you plan on putting in this stuff?”

You put a pan on the stove top and pour in enough milk to make everybody a cup. “I was kinda thinking people could add their own flavors? What kind do you want?”

He looks over the different foodstuffs in front of him, thick brows furrowing while he thinks. It’s cute. “I don’t know, I don’t trust half of this human shit.” He turns a bottle of syrup so the label is facing him. “Maybe this one? I think I remember liking hazelnut.”

“Hazelnut it is,” you say, reaching into the cabinet to pull out several mugs. “Which cup do you want to use?”

You and Karkat decide on the only matching mugs you think your mom owns, a pair of white and blue mugs that say “I Heart You A Latke” that your mom must’ve bought one Hanukkah. Not exactly holiday appropriate, but they match and are nice and big, so you go with them.

You have Karkat chop up a bar of dark chocolate for you, and melt it in the microwave before adding it to the milk, stirring in sugar and cocoa powder for extra measure. When it’s all mixed up and poured into separate cups, you add cinnamon to yours and watch as Karkat pours in a generous amount of hazelnut syrup into his. You top off both your cups with a mountain of mini marshmallows and a swirl of chocolate sauce.

“Holy shit, Dave,” Roxy says as she walks into the kitchen, going to one of her pink mugs that you’ve poured for her and taking a drink. “This is some gourmet ass shit you’ve made.”

You blush a little bit, then watch Karkat take a drink, too. “It’s good?”

He has a little bit of a chocolate mustache, and he laughs and wipes it off with the back of his hand. “Yeah, it’s really good.”

You sit on the couch with him, hands warming up against the mugs of chocolaty goodness. You never had the chance to cook when you lived with Bro, but since getting out you’ve taught yourself how to make all sorts of things. Maybe to make up for lost time, or maybe just because homemade, actual food will never stop feeling like a delicacy. Karkat always seems to like what you make for him, and you like to think you have a pretty good idea of what human foods taste good to trolls.

You’re joined on the other side by Roxy and Dirk, and Kanaya and Rose pile together into one of the chairs together, the one that’s so big it’s _almost_ a love seat. After some discussion, Roxy goes through the VHS tapes and brings out Halloweentown after finding out that neither you, nor Karkat and Kanaya, have seen it.

Half-way through the movie, your short night of sleep and the fact that you’re on your period and took an awful lot of pain meds, in addition to the hot chocolate in your belly, ends up making you too sleepy to see the end of the movie through. You think you started dozing off on Karkat’s shoulder about an hour in, but you’re not really sure. Roxy’s voice comes out soft and giggling next to you, wondering if you really fell asleep. Hey, you’re wondering too, and just when you think you’re waking up, Karkat’s carrying you up the stairs to your room.

“What happened? Did I miss the movie?” you ask. He’s got you in his arms bridal-style, and you’ve never been carried before in this way, but now that it’s happening it’s actually really nice. “Did they fix the talisman or what the fuck ever? Did Marnie get her man?”

“Did Marnie even have a man in this movie?” he wonders. “Can you get that for me?”

You reach down and twist the knob to your room and he pushes the door open, carrying you inside. “Remember what I said before about you being strong and me swooning?”

He sets you on the bed, not bothering to flick on the lights. “Are you swooning right now?”

“Maybe.”

He laughs and shuts the door, settling down onto the bed with you, his weight a familiar comfort. “I think I’ve given up on trying to repudiate your misguided attraction to be.” He buries his face in your hair.

“Shush,” you say. “It’s not misguided… don’t do the thing.”

“The thing?” he asks.

“The thing where you get down on yourself,” you sigh out of your nose. “You’re, like, so rad man.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He laughs softly. “So did you have fun today?”

“Mm hmm,” you murmur. “You?”

“It was,” he says, thinking. “Kind of weird, the Halloween stuff. Human holidays are still strange territory to me. But yeah, it was fun. Especially getting lost in corn and then throwing pumpkin entrails at you.”

You laugh, a little loudly in the quiet of the dark room. “Good, I’m glad,” you tell him. “Hey.”

“Hmm?” He’s sleepy, too, you can tell.

“Nothing. I love you.”

You think you feel him smile from where his face is pressed against your neck. 

“I love you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> this is just a very self indulgent break from my other fic, hope yall liked it!


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